"I don't feel that anyone ever really retires from the NFL," Cutler said in a statement to Darlington. "You are either forced to leave, or you lose the desire to do what's requred to keep going. I'm in between those situations at this point in my life."

Lynch, who left the network to become the G.M. of the San Francisco 49'ers, is the executive that made a massive trade with the Bears at the NFL Draft, allowing Chicago to take Mitchell Trubisky with the second overall pick.

Even while teams like the Houston Texans have ignored Cutler’s phone calls, the quarterback was still living the high life as he searched for his next landing place. He played in the snow, got caught in a candid moment while standing on his balcony on vacation, and moved his family back to his old stomping grounds in Nashville, and all the while he has insisted that he wanted to continue playing professional football, according to his agent.